Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday September 06, 2012 @01:20PM
from the what-the-market-will-bare dept.

theodp writes "A newly-granted Google patent on Dynamic Pricing of Electronic Content describes how information gleaned from your search history and social networking activity can be used against you by providing tell-tale clues for your propensity to pay jacked-up prices to 'reconsume' electronic content, such as 'watching a video recording, reading an electronic book, playing a game, or listening to an audio recording.' The patent is illustrated with drawings showing how some individuals can be convinced to pay 4x what others will be charged for the same item. From the patent: 'According to one innovative aspect of the subject matter described by this specification, a system may use this information to tailor the price that is offered to the particular user to repurchase the particular item of electronic content. By not applying discounts for users that may, in relation to a typical user, be more inclined to repurchase a particular product, profits may increase.' Hey, wasn't this kind of dynamic pricing once considered evil?"

Please, how is this patent any different from real world bargaining? It's true it happens less and less now, but especially in third world countries bargaining is every day happening.. from tuk tuk rides to shopping.

Essentially Google just added digital into the mix. What a great discovery so worthy of patent! Google, you've changed.

I've changed, too. I'm applying for a patent on Unpredictable Weasel with my chaotic buying habits. I'm certain to cause a divide by 0 at some point in their algorithm. You'll know it happens when their main site goes down.

It's different in that this has been patented by a company with a vast collection of information about most people. Existing B&M stores may do this based on quick tells about a persons demeanor and appearance, but that's really all they have to go on. Using the data Google has to *help* people find deals, or preferred products... not Evil. Patenting a process to use the information available to them to determine maximum likely price... not necessarily Evil. Using said patent against the people whose

Oh I'm not commenting on the 'innovation', I'm commenting on the potential for what I consider evil behaviour. I consider all software patents invalid. I don't ever recall seeing one where, if the problem at hand was given to a handful of programmers in the field, they'd come up with a solution, and generally the same solution. The way many seem to be worded though, it does not even need to be the same solution implementation to infringe... many software patents are effectively patenting all solutions to a

In most real world bargaining the seller doesn't have a record of the buyers transactions with other sellers.

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While schemes like this may drive up profit margins to some extent, I think the goal for a lot of retailers in using schemes like these is to keep the actual prices paid for products private and in house. The schemes prevent competitors from price matching and destroy comparison shopping sites like Nextag and (oops) Google Shopping, since their robots will no longer be able to collect meaningful prices. All the vendors will think "This way customers will just stay on my site" And that will be true, so long as the vendor is Amazon or Walmart.

The backlash will be people reporting the prices/discounts they were given for products when they review them. Vendors will respond by deleting that information from the reviews, which will upset their customers who will in turn switch to review aggregator sites like Epinions.com for their reviews, which will in turn be bought by Google, Amazon, or Walmart.

Given how hard trolls like Apple are slamming companies without sufficiently large patent profiles, Google needs to be able to defend itself. If it sues anyone over this sort of bullshit except in self defense you have a case. As it stands, failure to patent this would be stupid.

Its just as likely Google filed this to prevent Apple/Amazon from using it.

After all, google sells ads, (and android music/apps/video) but not a great deal of other stuff.They would not be the most likely users of this technology. They might sell the info to other on-line retailers, but those people will be undercut by retailers who don't buy this service from Google. In other words, use of this technology is likely to put the seller at a disadvantage, because even people who will pay more, want to pay less.

Selling Ice in Texas is easier and will fetch a higher price than selling Ice to Eskimos.But in Texas, they aren't stupid. Given the same Ice at two different prices they have no problem making up their mind.

This guy has bought every Madden game ever: No discount on Madden 13 for him.This guy has never bought a Madden game: Give him a $10 discount to incentivize him.

Sounds great in theory. Sounds ever better in a Google ad pitching the idea. But the reality is that you're about to screw over your biggest fans and supporters. And if they get wind of it, you consequently risk LOSING some of your biggest fans and supporters. Penalizing your fans for being your fans could result in an epic backlash.

Now there are some fan groups (not mentioning any names here), whose members would probably respond to this kind of abuse with a smile an a "Thank you sir, may I have another?!?" But I imagine most people would be none-to-happy to learn that their loyalty to a product line has been rewarded with a backhanded insult.

Not to mention the fact that you can bet that some of the more unscrupulous and technically-minded people out there will quickly learn how to game the system.

But the reality is that you're about to screw over your biggest fans and supporters. And if they get wind of it, you consequently risk LOSING some of your biggest fans and supporters. Penalizing your fans for being your fans could result in an epic backlash.

Amen. I find it extremely frustrating when a service to which I've subscribed (for years!) offers extreme discounts to new customers, but won't help me with access to improved equipment or services [cough] -HughesNet- [cough].

I find it extremely frustrating when a service to which I've subscribed (for years!) offers extreme discounts to new customers, but won't help me

Here's the deal. I work for an extremely large megacorporation which essentially has the same policies. Why? Because it's understood that it costs money (in terms of advertising or special deals) to steal a customer from a competitor, whereas keeping an existing customer is a presumption. Do you know why? Because most customers of service providers in even marginally competitive industries - whether that's cellphones, magazine subscriptions, TV service, home security systems, even home grocery delivery services - stay with their current provider ad infinitum unless they get REALLY p***ed off or someone else gives them a really good incentive to change. All these service providers (if they're smart) give you a (financially speaking) EXCESSIVE discount upfront to bring you on board just because it's a pain in the butt (usually) to switch once you've signed up. No evil involved necessarily, just regular consumer inertia.

So, to get the best deal, you need to get out of being a presumptive renewal for your service provider and become a potential customer loss. As soon as your contract is up, call your service provider and tell them you're cancelling. If they are not brain dead - or unless they're super polite - they will not say "sure, sorry to see you leave us forever." Instead, because these businesses understand that if you leave they will have to lay out those EXACT SAME DISCOUNTS to replace you, you will get them offered to you. It may take a little haggling and an escalation in customer care, but you will eventually get roughly equivalent deals.

Theoretically it shouldn't be this way in terms of rewarding customer loyalty... but from a bottom line perspective, it's (unfortunately) the logically correct thing to do. If you look at it from the company's perspective, they are "leaving money on the table" with every existing customer to whom they offer the discount who wasn't a risk to leave. Make sense?

>>>This guy has bought every Madden game ever: No discount on Madden 13 for him.>>>This guy has never bought a Madden game: Give him a $10 discount to incentivize him.

Sounds like a good reason to continue my practice of having four separate browsers (Firefox, Chromium Portable, Opera, and IE). Google has a detailed record of four separate IDs and purchase histories.

And you're right: It's a way to screw your biggest fans. In theory you end-up paying a 10 dollar extra higher price because

Do you use different proxies for each browser? If not, you still have one IP address, probably geolocated (assuming a major ISP), associated with all four browsers. And unless you are very careful to use each browser for different specific tasks, Google probably has built a similar personality profile for each of the four records. So even though you may exist as four different records in Google's database, Google doesn't care whether you are one person or identical quadruplets as long as all four of you hav

>>>some of the more unscrupulous and technically-minded people out there will quickly learn how to game the system.

I acquired a then-new Final Fantasy with $40 "new customer" discount and sold it for $54.50 on ebay. Bought a new gamecube for $49, got the Zelda Collection for free, sold it for $60.

I setup five accounts with Pizza Hut in order to get a 5 free medium pizza for newbs. And three accounts to get "20% welcome discount" from an online hobby store. In other words YES you are correct.

I disagree - taking advantage of the schemes of incompetent retailers is not unscrupulous behavior, it's capitalism in action. Unless, of course, one subscribes to the philosophy that capitalism itself is inherently evil...

More to the point, it's the *opposite* of unscrupulous - the poster is fulfilling his place in the marketplace and the company programs are operating as intended.

He gets cheap stuff because price is important to him and the company makes some minimal profit, while the rest of us who prefer leisure time to saving a few bucks pay more. These discounts are meant to allow a company to capture both ends of the market at the same time, rather than going with only the low end and making little money, or going with the high-end, and losing a bunch of price sensitive customers.

Nothing wrong with having a program with a few holes in it, as long as the customers have to work for the discount.

That said, while price discrimination tends to increase customer satisfaction over all, human logic is dysfunctional enough that many people feel enraged when they learned they paid more than someone else instead of simply enjoying their consumer surplus.

Kind of like the people who sell a little early in a rising market, making millions, and then when the markets kept going up, become distraught because they could have made many more millions.

To say that "capitalism itself is inherently evil" is to overstate the case, but it certainly has very strong leanings in that directions, and unless closely regulated by an *independant* regulator it quickly becomes evil. The problem is that the regulators are usually captured by those that they are intended to regulate, i.e., a separation of powers is not properly effected. Such priviledge escalations ARE evil, and quickly lead those who are regulated to also become nearly as evil as they would be if no

To say that "capitalism itself is inherently evil" is to overstate the case, but it certainly has very strong leanings in that directions, and unless closely regulated by an *independant* regulator it quickly becomes evil.

Disagree, to the extent that I always disagree when anyone implies that an inanimate object or idea is capable of expressing human emotions such as evil or greed. Capitalism itself is neither good nor evil - same goes for alternate economic theories such as communism - but can be applied in either a good or evil manner.

A great example of how capitalism can bring out the best in people would be Henry Ford's labor philosophy. [wikipedia.org] Ford believed that if you paid a fair (to the worker, not the board) wage, you wo

But no one should EVER be paying full price. That's like walking into a car dealership and handing them the sticker price in cash.

I have done almost that twice.Walk in. Offer sticker out the door. No tax or Lic. No fees. No extras. Will write a check for the Sticker amount. Make it clear in the beginning that I will walk out over 1 cent.They still make a decent profit. I pay a decent price and I am done in an hour.Best way to buy a car in my opinion.

There are plenty of things that I might have bought just to try but couldn't justify the high price. You could also look at this system as offering a discount to disinterested customers such as myself. Hey, he's not really interested but if we offer a discount he might bite.

Welcome to the real world. Companies lavish new customers with great deals all the time while denying the same benefits to their current customers. DirecTV will give free HBO to new customers for three months, but not current ones. The same with Verizon. You can call and complain, and they might match or offer you a better deal, but for the rest of the customers, ignorance is bliss.

Is this unethical? I don't think so. While paying less would be better, you are already paying a price you find acceptable. The

Ha ha ha ha. I was waiting for the first person to suggest this. Google, the world's greatest data aggregation and advertising company, patents using aggregated data to sell people stuff at the maximum price, and you think they're doing it so it can never be used? Yeah right.

You mean like how Obama promised to never use the NDAA indefinite detention provision, but it will most certaily be used by Romney if elected? Or how Bush promised the U.S.A. P.a.t.r.i.o.t. A.c.t. would only be used to monitor public communications, but when Obama arrived they started demanding private ISP customer records & download histories? POINT: Today google is honest. In a few years they might have a new management team that is not.

Er, you cannot prevent anyone from using your patent. You can only sue them for compensation. Most large companies have enough patents, to go on the offensive when sued. So this patent would never prevent Amazon or Microsoft or Google themselves from using it. It does prevent them from being sued if they decided to implement this idea, though.

To add to that, the only reason you would patent something in today's world, is to prevent getting sued by patent trolls and to add to you MAD defense. You can never even dream of preventing someone else from using your patent.

Not defending anyone that uses this pricing scheme, but what makes people think they have a right to something at any price? A strong sense of entitlement. Anyone familiar with sales knows that the more someone wants something the higher they'll pay. All the complainers are going to have used their own knowledge of someone's desires to benefit themselves sometime in their life, and they'll still remain self-righteous and indignant.

It's not that we expect things at any particular price. It's an expectation of basic fairness: that the store won't quietly double their normal prices just because I'm wearing a suit when I walk in, in the hopes of getting me to pay more than they'd normally charge.

And I've seen price discrimination backfire. When I lived up in northern Nevada, I remember the story (straight from the cowboy involved) of the scruffy cowboy who'd pulled up to the lot in a rusted-out beater truck and started looking at the expensive trucks. The new salesguy who'd "got stuck with him" tried arguing with him and pushing him towards the used cars. The cowboy was pretty adamant, and finally got mad and left. The salesguy figured no great loss, and he didn't have to deal with the stink of cowpies anymore.

Next day, the owner called all the salesguys in and called the new guy up front to congratulate him. On costing the dealership the sale of 15 brand-new pick-up trucks to a ranch's fleet. Plus loss of the maintenance on that ranch's fleet. Oh, and the loss of all business from one of the local drilling companies. Turns out, that scruffy cowboy? Was the owner of the ranch and drilling company in question. He'd just come in from helping fix a broken truck and bringing in some cows that'd gotten out, and was looking to replace all his trucks before he had more breakdowns. He was driving the beater truck because that was the one available to run out and take care of the problem, and he'd decided if that was the way he was going to be treated then he'd just take all his business somewhere where they had better manners. Oops.

Now imagine the owner of your company listening to a couple of his friends complain that when they went to buy something for their kids from his company, they were seeing prices a lot higher than what they knew other people were paying, and they weren't happy about it. Do you think the owner's going to be happy with you for getting his friends mad at him because of this new pricing scheme? Didn't think so.

Its was drilled into us at Tandy Corps retail locations always always LISTEN to your customer ASK open ended questions PROPOSE a solution (ask for the order) OVERCOME objections (ask for the order) SELL the addons CLOSE the sale.

if this guy was Tandy Trained he would have sat that guy down called the manager for backup sold 20 trucks (with the Service Plan) and a truck load of Floor Mats/Cargo|Tool Boxes and then taken the next three days Off.

The reason that companies treat rich customers better is that on average, doing so will get more profit than allocating their limited attention and resources to scruffy-looking customers. The fact that one particular scruffy-looking customer would have brought them more profit doesn't mean that this is an unprofitable policy on average; a particular policy may make more money at some times and less at others, and in the long run, the loss to this scruffy-looking customer will be more than balanced by an e

Stores can charge whatever they want, but hopefully people resist this.

This is a misconception. Example: on September 11, 2001, several local gas stations quadrupled their fuel prices. On September 12, 2001, those same gas stations were shuttered by government agents for illegal price fixing.

"All the complainers are going to have used their own knowledge of someone's desires to benefit themselves sometime in their life, and they'll still remain self-righteous and indignant."

But it's not the same thing.

I can use my knowledge of someone else's desire in a negotiation. And I might come out ahead thereby. But it's not the same thing. That is negotiation. This scheme is not. They give you a price, and that's it. You aren't negotiating, and you can't talk it down. It's take-it-or-leave-it.

You're simply not being creative enough. For example you could use this on bundles - sure you might know what A, B and C costs individually, but if you're on product A's page and get an offer for a bundle, that's pretty hard to compare. You probably don't want to offer the exact same bundle at different prices, but there's a huge set of possible bundles so you'll rarely reuse them. Or you can just "classify" your customers so your good customers are offered one set of bundles and your less good customers di

An efficient market requires that goods and prices be known commodities.

Schemes like this one are, by definition, attempts to make the market less efficient by profiting from degrading the quality of information available. That people are defending it on "property rights" grounds shows that aristocracy still has a large following, even though it is a less efficient social economic arrangement.

Not defending anyone that uses this pricing scheme, but what makes people think they have a right to something at any price?

They don't - you just made that up. They think they have a right not to be discriminated against and I happen to agree. If a purple-man (not to start a race war) walked into your store you can't charge him double what you charged the blue-man that just left your store. You can adjust the price for everybody if the demand/supply equation changes but not for a single person or class of people.

Correct, you don't have a right to something at some price, unless you are granted one (it's called price regulation).
However, that's not the question here. The question here is whether the sellers should a) be allowed to exploit the fact that they can get information about your past transactions, and you can't easily get information on *their* past transactions. and b) whether they should be allowed to essentially set a price, then do "take it or leave it",without you ever being able to haggle back. Thi

This is merely a new way to implement a ubiquitous and venerable concept: price discrimination [wikipedia.org].
There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little worse and sell a little cheaper.

This kind of price discrimination only works becasue the product is digital. Being able to buy from the guy getting the lower price is how this is avoided with physical goods. The solution is not prevent price descrimination. The solution is to allow resale of digital goods.

Seriously. Enough troll headlines about X company patenting Y. Let us know when Google or any other company aggressively uses patent trolling to stymie a competitor. Or when any of these evil privacy invading money grabbing kitten torturing patents actually end up being implemented. Companies patent anything and everything now, it doesn't mean your most FUD imagination of its worst scariest implementation will come true tomorrow. When it does, let us know. Until then, give it a rest.

Why? I can charge you different prices for cash/credit. So I already know you're willing to pay different prices for the same goods.

Not according to your merchant agreement. You can offer discounts for cash but can't charge more for credit. They are not willing to pay more for the goods, they are willing to pay more for the convenience of credit. Different story.

Now if you come in all Mr. T wearing 99 gold chains and a T-shirt that says "I ALWAYS NEED MORE BLANG" and I have a gold chain shop, there's a good chance that my prices are going up to what I think you'll pay.

If I come into your gold shop and there are no prices posted, I'm walking out - period. Now, I'm not arguing about haggling - anyone can try and negotiate for a lower price than what's posted and as a merchant it's your right to choose to engage in it or not but in that scenario

It takes advantage of people not knowledgeable about what they're doing.

Personally, I consider that evil. It is why I quit my job working for a payday loan company. They prey on poor, stupid people.

However, technically, it can also lead to lower prices for some people. If the real price is slightly too high for you, they'll lower it for you without losing money on every single sale and the lowered price will probably make you inclined to come back... at which point the price will probably go back up and like everything else just fluctuate like a pendulum.

And legally... I think it falls in line with what is accepted practice. Businesses have always fluctuated their prices based on consumer demand. This just lets them get more personal.

Personally, I consider that evil. It is why I quit my job working for a payday loan company. They prey on poor, stupid people.

Yet, there is a telling shortage of banks and other businesses willing make short term loans to those poor, stupid people at a lower rate than the payday loan companies charge. It may seem that they are "preying" on these people, even the payday loan companies might secretly think they are, but in reality they are just serving their market by offering the best deal availabl

It still is considered evil, at least by customers. The people interested in doing this just hope the customers won't figure out what's up. Fat chance of that in this interconnected world. It won't take long for people to compare notes and find out about variations in pricing with no explicable reason for them (no coupon or discount codes used or anything like that). And once people notice, word will spread like wildfire. As will customer dissatisfaction, and people will shift to vendors who simply offer a straight-up price without trying to play games.

... and people will shift to vendors who simply offer a straight-up price without trying to play games.

Unfortunately that doesn't happen. A few people will, but most won't care, as the trouble of changing habits most often than not outweighs small annoyances. Besides, there are tons of people out there who enjoy the challenge of gaming the system when purchasing. I remember reading about an US retail chain who tried playing straight prices (sorry, I don't remember its name), lost tons of money, and had to revert to crazy pricing schemes (bundles, coupons, rebates, loss leaders, special days for this or that

It didn't work for Saturn either. They had a strict no-haggle, what-you-see-is-what-you-pay pricing system at their dealerships. Turns out people like to haggle when buying cars, even if they end up paying no less than the MSRP anyway. They still feel like they got a deal, and that's what is important to them.

I find it interesting that people notice this with prices and often compare but don't compare other information. For example you could get slightly edited news footage or film footage with a different theme or message. I would certainly be interested in supporting efforts to check for this kind of manipulation or it will someday be put in place.

I cannot say what is motivating this patent however just because you apply for a patent doesn't mean you intent to implement it. This should be obvious from all the trolls out there. If someone desires to prevent an "evil" invention from being unleashed on the world having a patent on it would be a means of preventing others from doing so.

Dreaming up and patenting evil inventions to prevent others from creating them may well have saved us from a good number of woes we are now dealing with such as DRM, rob

But I have a tendency to put stuff in a cart and not buy it right away.

I wonder if that works in my favor?

Maybe once. But once they notice most likely they'll increase the price of in-cart items a bit every day, to rush you into buying.

Anyway I wouldn't worry much about this technology. They're still playing cat & mouse with SEO (and losing) so it won't take long before it's possible to figure out what the absolute lowest price is and how to get it. So this could backfire.

But I have a tendency to put stuff in a cart and not buy it right away.

I wonder if that works in my favor?

It did actually, right up until you made those keyword searches for fois gras and expensive german automobiles. Double-Click (and by extension Google or any of their paid advertisers) sees all.

This clearly means Google does not find that behavior evil, leading me to wonder what other things they consider 'not evil'. Is charging differential pricing evil? Is censoring search results evil? How about

Double-Click (and by extension Google or any of their paid advertisers) sees all.

Just use a browser that doesn't cripple privacy features, and adblock ad and tracking sites. As about any advertising is from third-party domains, a sane referer policy will help against bastards you missed, too. Also, it's quite vital to block Google's click jacking (go to 2nd page of results or amend your query, note the URL of a link, then with mouse still over the link, click and watch the URL changing). And so on, so on...

Google Bot #1: "The cpu6502 dude went to amazon. Let's show him book & TV ads and jackup the prices."Bot #2: "Yeah but he didn't buy anything. He opened a second tab and searched isohunt for free downloads."#1: "Dangit...... no wait he likes music! Look at all the songs he listens to...."#2: "Yeah on Free radio and youtube. He never buys anything.... last week he downloaded the Hot 100 of 2011."#1: "Bummer..... oh look! He just surfed over to cheapassgamer and bought a game..... (sigh). Never min

Recently I have been thinking about causes of piracy and I believe a big factor that contributes to piracy is the fixed retail prices of goods. In many countries today, haggling is common and it allows the buyer and seller to come to an agreement on price based on the interest of a single buyer acquiring the item and a single seller collecting money for the item. However, in many western countries, goods are available at a single price and you can take it or leave it. For those who do not believe that a

our search history and social networking activity can be used against you by providing tell-tale clues for your propensity to pay jacked-up prices to 'reconsume' electronic content, such as 'watching a video recording, reading an electronic book, playing a game, or listening to an audio recording.'

Surely, RIAA / MPAA's wettest dream.

I hope against hope Google patents this and then makes it so it's impossible or impractical to license, while vigorously suing into oblivion anyone who dares try it without license. Otherwise, Google just became as evil as any other ordinary Evil Enterprise.

This whole "streaming" and "cloud" thing is just setting us up for robbery. Worse than we are now, I mean. I can see content one's already bought held hostage for further payment. That's what these assholes want, you know. They want it so every single time you read a book that you already bought you have to pay for it. Wait -- didn't someone already try this some time ago? DIVX. Failed, didn't it... it'll be easier to make it stick once all the content's in "the cloud."

Can you imagine? A Blu-Ray one already purchased requiring further payment every time one wishes to view it? That's why they want to do away with physical media, you know. They want this. It's that kind of thinking that makes me think physical media must remain the primary method of distribution. Files in a cloud are too easy to arbitrarily delete, too easy to control, too easy to hold for ransom. With physical, if you want my copy of Brave back, you're going to have to bust into my house, survive whatever punishment greets you when you do, and then make off with the movie.

Every time I read crap like this, I become more disillusioned with this modern world. I don't yearn for days gone by, what I want is for people to wake the fuck right up and say "enough with the gouging and pocket-picking, nickle-and-diming and outright robbery already!"

What Google is doing will drive the creation of dozens of startup businesses, all aimed at gaming the Google system.

So, what you're saying, it's good for the enconomy? (:-)

Seriously, the Airlines already do this, and there's good money to be made writing articles and books telling people how to get around it, and several websites that "help" people get the best deals. Then the airline buy off the sites, and prices go up. Then new sites get created, and new books written. Rinse, lather, repeat.

I don't know if discounting can be used to effectivly circumvent either the federal or any similar state laws.. my guess anyone actually doing this is leaving themselves open for actions for discriminatory practice in at least some jurisdictions.

It is amazing anyone could be granted a patent on such an obvious endeavour with prior art stemming from the dawn of industry. Whats next patenting "dynamic pricing" within a tourist trap while a cruise ship is in port?

If such a system were deployed wouldn't people just create accounts where they act as if they are piss poor to get the lowest possible price? Machine algorithms are exceptionally poor at reasoning and dealing with false information.

The question is, how can we use this to our advantage to get better prices? Is it possible to create a fake profile in order to obtain a discount. They'll stop doing this stuff once they realize too many people are gaming the system. I know people who do this all the time with online deals. Netflix first month is free. Sign up every month with a different credit card. I hear that those prepaid Visa cards work great. You don't maintain a profile, so they don't recommend good movies but you can still watc

If it is an essential item such as food, clothing, housing, healthcare, prescription drugs, or energy, then dynamic pricing should be prohibited, and everyone should pay the same price.

I've lived places where the biggest users of electricity get a discount, because they only get one bill, use fewer/shorter lines, etc. I've also lived where the biggest users are charged a premium, so that the electric company doesn't have to add another generating plant.

Things are priced what people are willing to pay +/- 3dB. If something costs too much, people will go elsewhere or without. If things are priced too low, people will buy it and resell it. If you fix the price of rental housing, some